


All That Matters

by scifishipper



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Romance, vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-02
Updated: 2011-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifishipper/pseuds/scifishipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee and Kara find Earth and each other. AU from Revelations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> **A remix/continuation of** [Next to the One You Love](http://archiveofourown.org/works/270343) by da_angel729 for the BSG_Remix. The final lines of the original fic are repeated at the beginning of Chapter 1.

_Admiral's Quarters_

 _"I can't live without her," Lee says. "That's what my father said. When I asked him why he was doing this."_

 _Kara shakes her head, as if she doesn't believe him, and looks at him. "What's it like to feel that way?"_

 _The question hangs in the air between them, and she shifts her weight from one foot to the other as he stares at her._

 _Lee tightens his grip on her hand, and uses the other one to brush some hair out of her face._

 _"I know what it's like."_

Color suffuses her cheeks because she knows exactly what he means, especially when it’s the two of them standing alone, touching for the first time in weeks. She’s been back for a while, feeling more and more like herself, but still trying to figure out what in the hell she is.

“Lee,” she says slowly, not able to hear his next words, and what it would mean if she responds the way she wants to. Things are always complicated between them.

He drops his hand away from her face. “I know,” he says, and his voice sounds tired and she knows it’s because of more than just his father. They’ve done this dance before, getting perilously close to saying something that could lead to more, and she’s always the one to pull back, afraid of what might happen. Maybe she’s changed, but apparently that hasn’t. She deflects, like she always does.

“Your dad’s coming back. You know that, right?” She takes her step in the dance that moves them away from the edge, and he dips his head, silent. Kara drops his hand and steps back. “Old Man wouldn’t leave Tigh in charge for too long, right?” Her tone is light; humor always cements them to the safe and familiar ground.

“Yeah.” Lee takes a breath and lets it out, lips turning up in a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

She glances at him and moves towards the hatch. “Old one-eye’s waiting for me, so I gotta go.”

Lee manages to hold her gaze for a long moment before she blinks and turns away, putting space between them and leaving him there alone with his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

~ * ~

It’s been a week since the Old Man left and the ship has taken on an empty feeling, like a wayward flock that’s lost its leader. Tigh is a piss-poor replacement, but she tries to stay out of his way and focus on her job.

After CAP, Kara dries her hands on a worn towel and smooths her hair back into its ponytail. She’s about to get some chow when Narcho and Racetrack burst into the head.

“Did you see him just now, marching down the corridor like he frakking owns the place? First his dad makes him Galactica’s CAG, then he’s commanding the Beast, and now he’s appointed President, just like that. Bet any day now they’ll make him Admiral, too,” Narcho says nastily, not bothering to hide his disdain from Kara who has her eyes locked hard on his face.

She steps up to him, fingers curled into fists. “And if they do, you’ll be the first in line to salute and say ‘yes, sir, Admiral sir, whatever you say, sir!’ We clear on that, Allison?”

The pilot glares at her for a long moment, jaw twitching like he’s gonna make a thing of it, and Kara is so ready to lay into him her hand’s practically tingling. She pushes again. “You got something to say about that? Because Apollo’s saved your lousy ass at least a hundred times. So you better watch your frakking mouth.”

Racetrack pulls Narcho away before they come to blows. “C’mon. Leave it.” She tosses Kara her own look of disdain and they move towards the showers and out of Kara’s line of fire.

Kara’s heart’s still pounding as she leaves a minute later, ignoring her rumbling stomach to search for Lee. Frakkers don’t have an ounce of godsdamned loyalty. She shoulda let him have a bullet for his insubordination, but they need all the pilots they can get and at least his flying isn’t total shit.

She’s still irritated when she reaches Adama’s quarters, but the remnants of her anger melt away, replaced by a smile as she steps through the half-open hatch.

“Hey Mr. Prez. Heard you were here.” She steps up behind him and looks over his shoulder, glancing at the book in his hand. “The Temple of Aurora.”

“On Earth. Or at least the way Pythia described it.” He runs his finger along the roughened edges of the page.

“We’ll find it. Walk those halls together.” And she believes it. She can see them together there, exploring and it makes her feel a sharp moment of hope – more than she’s felt in a long time.

Lee’s voice is heavy with doubt. “Pretty to think so.” He snaps the book closed, breaking her brief reverie. She blinks and looks around at the boxes stacked on the table.

“This Roslin’s stuff? It’s weird for them to not be here.”

Lee nods vaguely and turns towards the Old Man’s desk. “No one sits in his chair. Tigh can’t even look at it.” His voice is heavy as he recounts a story from his childhood. There’s sadness in his tone and it hurts to hear it. She pulls back the impulse to slide her hand in his again, like she did the week before when they watched the Admiral fly away in his raptor. But she needs to stay away from him, from the familiar longing that pushes her thoughts to a place she doesn’t want to go. So, she just follows at a distance, crossing her arms over her chest and speaking.

“You know, Leoben told me something when he was holding me in that dollhouse on New Caprica. That children are born to replace their parents. That for children to reach their full potential, their parents have to die.” Her heart squeezes as she says it, unable to imagine that her surrogate father might not return.

Lee turns towards her and his eyes are red-rimmed, and she feels the stab of pain again, a little more pronounced because he’s so close. He licks his lips the way he does when he’s nervous and she knows he’s going to speak. “I’m not ready.”

Because she can’t resist anymore, she puts her hand on his arm and squeezes. “He’s tough, Lee. He’ll come back.” It feels so strange to be the one comforting him now, being the one who’s calm when it had always been him.

He sniffs loudly and shuffles his feet, looking away from her. She doesn’t really know what to say to make it better, so she pulls him into a hug. He slides his arms around her slowly and they’re back where they were the week before, comforting each other, missing the Old Man. This time, though, he feels so good under her hands that she doesn’t want to let go. Her skin prickles with his closeness, the smell of him filling her nose, and when she shifts slightly, he holds on tighter. He wants this, too. She tips her head back until her cheek is pressed against his, warm and slightly rough on her skin. It’s too much to stop now and their lips find each other, soft, comforting at first and then more intense as he pulls her tighter against him, deepening the kiss, sliding his tongue over her lips until she opens her mouth to let him in. Her mind is spinning, torn between desire for this man and everything that’s come between them before. Zak and Sam and Dee and their own stupid frak ups are jumbled in a confusing mix, pushing and pulling her in different directions. It’d be so easy to fall into this, and then what? For once in her godsdamned life, she’d like not to screw it all up.

Panic and desire fight inside her and she breaks away from the kiss, not quite meeting his eyes and not sure what she’d say if she did. He’s breathing heavy and she can feel his disappointment more than if he used words.

She wants to say something, tell him about the hybrid and the cylons and how she hasn’t been herself since she got back, but the emergency claxons sound, and after a moment, Lee releases her. He rushes over to the comm and connects to the CIC. Dropping the receiver back on the unit, he turns to her, relief evident on his face. “It’s Dad. He’s back and he’s brought the base ship with him.” He brushes past her, and she follows him out the hatch and towards the hangar deck to meet the Admiral’s raptor.

~ * ~

The moment the Old Man steps out of the bird, time shifts into fast forward. The realization that the final four are on Galactica spreads through the ship like wildfire. Kara’s jaw is tight with anger and she wants to know who the frak has been betraying them all this time. She’s been dealing with the cylons, trying to get her head around an alliance, but betrayal – she can’t stomach it. If they weren’t somehow connected to Earth, she’d airlock those four herself. What tolerance she has for cylons she can’t extend to those who have been pretending to be human. It’s taken four years for her to accept Sharon and she still wonders how the frak she did it.

When D’Anna starts executing crew members, Kara’s right alongside Sharon again, planning an op that will take them into the base ship to rescue their people. It’s a shit plan, but it’s all they have. The frakking final four are cowards, and if they had any balls, they’d come forward and give themselves up. Hatred runs through her veins, but it’s good to feel the burn.

She’s finishing up the briefing when Sam finds her and drags her to the back of the hangar deck towards her pristine viper. The cylons are murdering pilots and she doesn’t have time for this crap. Sam’s insistent, though, telling her that there’s something different about this ship.

“And you’re both out of your frakking minds,” she tells him. Tyrol paces the length of the ship, a strange expression on his face.

Sam’s trying to convince her when loud footsteps approach them on the deck. Kara’s eyes pop wide as a contingent of Marines rounds the viper with weapons drawn. Sam and Tyrol freeze.

“Ensign Anders, Specialist Tyrol, slowly put your hands on your head and face the viper.”

“What the hell is going on?” she asks.

“They’re cylons. Just like the XO.” Kara’s eyes are fixed on the Sergeant, uncomprehending.

She senses movement and snaps her eyes to her husband. “Sam?” He glances at Tyrol and answers in low tones.

“It’s true, Kara.” Her stomach clenches and she can’t believe what she’s hearing. Her frakking husband is a cylon? That’s not possible. What in the godsdamned hell is going on? She can’t speak for the shock of it, and she just gapes as both men are handcuffed.

“There’s something different about this viper. Something’s changed. ” Sam says urgently as the guards take him away. “You gotta find it!”

His words barely register.

~ * ~

Lee has never felt rage like this. The depth of betrayal wrought by Saul Tigh is more than he can cope with. Seeing his father sobbing in his arms nearly broke him, and all he wants to do is kill. He can barely see for the haze of fury, but his target is sharp, standing rim-rod straight with more pride than he deserves to have. He doesn’t feel it when his fist connects to Tigh’s face. It does nothing to lessen his rage. Only the sight of his body flushed out the airlock will do that for him.

When D’Anna doesn’t back down, he knows that Saul Tigh is going to die. There will be blood shed on this day, maybe all of theirs, but he does not care. He can’t get his father’s voice out of his head, _I can’t kill him. I can’t kill the bastard._ The only thing that keeps him from flushing the XO out of the airlock on sight is the prospect of Earth. It’s the one last shred of hope he has for saving this frakked-up situation.

He watches Tyrol and Anders walk into the launch tube to join Tigh. Each man meets his eyes, but all he feels is disgust. Whatever connection he’s ever had with any of these three is gone. Sam speaks to Tigh, and Lee’s thoughts flash to Kara, wondering if she knows, wondering how she’s going to take the news.

Dee tells him that the cylon nukes are hot and Lee makes his choice. He’ll execute them one at time until the base ship backs down. “Sergeant Harner, clear the tube of everyone but Tigh.” Lee’s eyes never leave the XO as Tyrol and Sam are led away. He puts the key into the airlock release, ready to do what his father cannot. No turning back now.

~ * ~

Kara’s running and running, dodging crew and equipment and taking the steps two at a time. She’s heard the signal to Earth in her viper and she needs to get to Lee. They’ve told her that the plan is to airlock the final four and she has to stop him. Her lungs are on fire by the time she reaches him.

“Lee, stop. Please, stop,” she pants, jamming her hand under his to turn the key off. “Those frakking cylons just gave us Earth.” Lee stares at her wide-eyed and she sees Colonel Tigh through the window, gaping at her with his mouth hanging open.

Kara’s body is shaking as she waks with Lee back towards her viper. He is silent, his face hard, and she can’t imagine what’s in his mind. Her own is flooded with the knowledge that Tyrol and Tigh and Sam-- especially Sam--are cylons. It’s still too big to get her head around.

She explains what she’s found, how Sam called her to the viper, and now she understands why. Lee takes a step up the ladder as she recounts the story, then pauses, turning around. His eyes are warm and sympathetic. “I’m sorry about Sam.”

She blinks, surprised. “Yeah. Me, too.” Their eyes linger, unspoken words hovering between them. But now’s not the time, and Lee turns back and climbs into the viper.

The signal goes in and out as Lee adjusts the controls. “Well, it’s a Colonial emergency locator signal. And no other wireless in the Fleet is picking this up?” His tone is heavy with doubt.

“Gaeta’s confirmed it. The channel’s empty except for this viper. It’s gotta be a signal from Earth.”

“You’re reaching, Kara.” He stands and pulls himself out of the cockpit.

“C’mon, Lee. Add it up. I disappear into a storm, ride this viper to Earth. I get a vision that leads me to the base ship. Its hybrid tells me that the final five cylons have been to Earth. But we need the missing three, D’Anna, to bring them out into the open.” She’s speaking fast, knowing that he doesn’t believe her and she needs to make him.

“So, now we’re starting to get messages from the beyond.” He’s dismissive. It prickles. Even after everything, he still doubts.

“You heard the signal. The final cylons led me to it. If it’s Earth, they’ve given us the home of the Thirteenth Tribe. Just the way the hybrid said it would happen. Like it or not, Lee, something’s orchestrating this for a purpose.”

He rocks on his feet, dubious. “A higher power?”

“Call it whatever you want, but it seems to want us to find Earth…with the cylons.”

He shakes his head and rubs and hand over his face. “I can’t do it, Kara. You want me to risk everything for one signal in the entire Fleet, to believe a hybrid that could be telling us anything…Gods, this is crazy.”

Kara steps towards him. “It might be crazy, but I believe it. I feel it in my gut. This is the right path, Lee. We were meant to find this.” She knows she’s pleading now, but desperation is pushing her. He has all the power now to stop this or move it forward towards Earth.

She watches the conflicting feelings cross his face and sees the moment that he lets go of his doubts. He exhales and takes two steps towards her. “I don’t know what I believe anymore, Kara. So many things I can’t explain, and I don’t know what to do about it.” He looks at her for a long time before he reaches out to touch her face, and their kiss from earlier flashes through her mind. “I thought you were dead and now you’re here. I can’t deny that. If you say this is the way to Earth…. then I believe you. I believe you.”

Emotion rises up inside her, and she’s relieved and amazed and terrified all at the same time. For a brief second, she’s afraid that she’s wrong and it will all end badly, but her faith and his belief bolster her. Kara leans forward and wraps her arms around his waist. This moment, the one that’s supposed to be about Earth, is suddenly about her and Lee. He pulls her tightly against him, and she feels for the first time in weeks like things are finally coming together. She stays in his embrace, letting herself feel grounded and loved, until Lee kisses her hair and pulls away.

“I need to see my father.”

~ * ~

Exhilaration rushes through Lee’s body as the CIC erupts in celebration. The constellations are a match and suddenly they have found Earth. He’s hugged nearly every person in the CIC, but he hasn’t seen the one person he most wants to share this moment with. He goes searching for her, hugging and shaking hands with more people along the way, entirely ignoring the propriety he’s supposed to show as President.

She’s not where he expects to find her and his heart is pounding. She’s done it – after all of the hell they’ve been through, she’s brought them to Earth and his mind is whirling with the implications of it all. Everything feels new and possible and with a growing sense of resolve, he strides down the corridor, his mind focused on everything he has to say to her. It’s time.

~ * ~

Sam finds Kara at the memorial wall standing in front of Kat’s picture. Anxiety makes him feel sick, but he has to talk to her.

“Kara….” She turns her head slightly, but doesn’t look at him, her eyes locked on Kat’s picture.

She reaches out and pushes the loosened pin back into the wall. “We made it, kid,” she says, and after a beat turns to Sam.

“What do you want?” Her tone has an edge and his stomach drops. Whatever pain he thought he saw in her face when the guards took him away seems to be gone, and her eyes are hard.

He tries to laugh a little. “So are you still gonna shoot me, Kara? Now that I’m a cylon?” The joke doesn’t quite work and she stares at him.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you.” He needs to offer some explanation because he doesn’t know when he’ll get another chance.

She snorts. “Yeah, well, I would have kept it from me, too, Sam. There was a time when I would have put that bullet between your eyes. I guess today’s your lucky day.” She turns back to the pictures on the wall, dismissing him.

“I guess so.” He musters up his courage, and blurts it out, because he has to know, one way or the other. “So where does that leave us?”

“Sam,” she says, shaking her head. “There’s no us. There hasn’t been in a long time. We’re done.”

Anger flashes across his features. “I stayed with you, Kara. I supported you on the Demetrius – every frakking step of the way.”

Her eyes flash to his, hot with fire. “You were a cylon, Sam. And you didn’t say shit.” He sees the rage building and his body tightens, ready for a blow.

“So what? So you could put a bullet between my eyes? Cause you would have, Kara. You were out of your frakking mind and now _you’re_ saying it’s over?” Self-disgust fills him and his stomach churns. They’ve had arguments like this more times than he can count, and every time, he ends up back with her, regretting and needing at the same time.

She takes an exasperate breath, and he sees the fight in her eyes going out a bit. “Look, Sam. It’s over. And it’s not because you’re a frakking cylon.” She bites off the last word and looks away.

“Frak,” he says softly, feeling unexpected finality in her tone. He turns to go.

“Sam.” Her voice sounds behind him, quieter and he turns his head back towards her. “We’re just… we don’t work, you know?”

He appraises her for a moment, and he reaches one last time. “We could’ve.” He glances away and then back. “Maybe if things had been different, huh?” His voice turns bitter. “Maybe without _Apollo_ …”

She snorts. “What, like on New Caprica?” He deflates because she’s right. Lee’s always been there, between them, to some degree or another. “I want to be with him, Sam. I love him.” The look on her face when she says it, soft and hopeful, is more gutting than the words somehow. For a second, he wonders if she’s telling him just to twist the knife, because that’s the way she does things. “I just want you to know that so it’s not some surprise and you don’t get your software all jammed up.” He almost laughs; there’s the Kara he knows. Loves. Loved. They’re not going to be friends, he knows that for sure. He’s a cylon and she’s…whatever the hell she is, and that’s all they will ever be now.

Sam lingers awkwardly for a moment, his place in her life gone, and then he turns away. As he walks down the hall, he leaves her and them and whatever hopes he had for a normal human life behind him. He’s a cylon now and for whatever that means, he feels like maybe he has some kind of chance to finally move on.

~ * ~

Kara lingers at the wall after Sam leaves, still a little stunned at her own words. She loves Lee. She said it out loud and to Sam. That means something, maybe everything. She and Lee are friends now, had once been lovers, and Kara thought she’d accepted their frakked-up relationship. Thought she could live with it never being more. Since she came back, though, it hasn’t sat right with her. It doesn’t make sense that she’s been holding back, although she’s come up with plenty of reasons: Zak, the Old Man, Earth, Sam, herself…. No, not reasons. Excuses.

Because none of that really matters, she realizes. She was gone, now she’s back. An unexpected second chance and she’ll be damned if it’s going to go the same frakking way. With a slowly emerging smile, she turns away from the loss that this place represents, all those pilots and civilians, and now what she had with Sam. She’s ready to let it all go.

~*~

Lee’s face hurts from smiling so hard. After all this time searching, it’s still unbelievable that they’ve found Earth. He rounds a corner, his mind whirling with excitement, and then he sees her, striding down the corridor towards him. When he catches her eyes, Kara’s face breaks out into a grin that matches his own. He opens his arms to hug her and jolts in surprise when she grabs him behind the neck and pulls him in for a kiss. His hands rise to her face and he kisses her back. People are streaming by, excited chatter about Earth darting around them, but he doesn’t really notice. All he can do is focus on the taste and sensation of her mouth on his. They kiss for a long minute before he pulls his mouth away, his face flushed and confused. “Kara, what the hell was that?”

“We’ve done it, Lee. All of us. We found frakking Earth and I want to start over. I’m tired of being a frakking ghost. I feel alive for the first time in weeks, and I’m ready.” She’s still holding onto him, and he feels excitement shaking through her body.

“ _You_ found it, Kara,” he says, his voice loaded with emotion. He loves her so much at this moment, with the chaos of celebration whirring around them, and he doesn’t want to let go. She’s beaming at him, looking beautiful and happy.

“You deserve it, Kara. You deserve to be happy.” He means it, he does, but…it hits him suddenly. The reason for an unexpected knot in his stomach. “I guess… you and Sam...?” Lee can’t finish the question and he can’t look at her. He averts his eyes and stiffens, steeling himself for her response.

“Sam?” Kara blinks and the smile fades. “What? No. Frak that. We’re done, Lee.”

His eyes flash to hers, uncomprehending, and he thinks his ears are playing tricks on him.

“I told him already, it’s over.”

He’s floored by her words. “Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that,” she smiles at him.

Suddenly he gets it. “Right, I guess now that he’s a cylon-”

“Lee,” she interrupts, voice firm. “That’s not why. I don’t care that he’s a cylon.” She pauses. “Much.” Kara shakes her head and reaches out to touch his arm. “Didn’t you hear what I said before? We found Earth and I’m _ready._ ” Kara grins at him, and reaches up to touch his face. “We’re gonna walk those halls together, remember?

Emotion surges inside him and then her mouth is on his. With realization dawning, he kisses her back urgently, sliding his fingers into her hair and holding on, plundering her mouth because he has no reason not to. They’ve arrived at Earth and so much frakking more. They, break apart, breathless, their eyes glazed with barely contained passion. “I love you, Lee Adama.”

His eyes go wide and he answers automatically, “I love you, too.” With a rush of emotion, he grips her one more time in a tight hug. They linger there for a long moment, reveling in this new chance between them, before she steps back and grins, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the hangar deck.

~ * ~

Stepping out onto the planet, the sudden and shocking realization of what they have found hits them hard. Lee and Kara’s fingers are intertwined tightly, like they’re each holding on to the only thing they have left. The landscape is barren and empty with crumbled buildings and a flat smell of decay. Her eyes find the Admiral but his expression is hard. Laura Roslin looks frailer and more defeated than any cancer could ever accomplish. Even the cylons, whom she still thinks of as emotionless creatures, are stricken with a disappointment so profound that she can barely look at them.

She just holds on to Lee as they walk, her fingers nearly numb from the tightness of her grip. He has barely spoken, and she’s not sure words are even necessary. The only sounds she can hear are footsteps, crunching on the ground, and the intermittent sound of ships flying overhead. After a while, she remembers the signal that drew them here and leads Lee back to the raptor to get the transponder.

~ * ~

They’ve been walking for an hour, following a signal that’s weakening, but still cutting through the silence of the woods. They haven’t spoken for the last twenty minutes and Lee needs to know what’s on her mind. He stops and waits for her to notice he’s not following. When she turns around, he sits heavily on a fallen tree, surveying the barren land that he knows must have been vibrant with life. He can tell that she doesn’t want to stop, but she walks towards him anyway, standing a few feet away, fiddling with the controls on the receiver. Her face is ashen and her lips are drawn down deeply into a frown.

“You had no way of knowing, Kara.” He stares at her, waiting through a long pause for her to answer.

“But I did know. I had a feeling that things didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t explain it.” She pounds her chest. “Here, Lee. I felt it right here in my chest. And this is why. It’s all come true. I’ve lead them to their end. Just like the Hybrid said. _You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them to their end._ ” She mocks the hybrid’s voice.

Her face scowls, fury making her features harsh, and she turns away to keep walking. In a second, he grabs her arm and spins her around.

“Kara, wait. What are you talking about? What’s going on?” He’s desperate now and can feel her slipping away again.

Her fierce and angry expression starts to falter. “I thought I was leading them— _you_ \--to Earth, Lee. A good Earth. I – I ignored what the hybrid said, what Leoben told me about all that destiny crap. Is this it? Is this all that I am? Some frakking _dead thing_ returned from the dead to lead the humans and cylons to yet another dead thing?!”” Her voice breaks at the end and he pulls her in close, and after a moment, she wraps her arms around him, too. His eyes fill with tears and he knows he can’t fix this, just has to hold her. He’s overwhelmed by his own loss and has no idea what to say to her. He doesn’t understand anything anymore.

Abruptly, she breaks away from him and wipes her eyes on her sleeve. “I can’t do this. I have to find the signal.” She turns away without looking at him. Lee’s arms feel empty and he doesn’t know why she’s so compelled to search for the signal. He wants to tell her to stop and talk to him more, but he said he’d follow her, so he does.

~ * ~

Forty-five minutes later, her legs are burning from pushing herself hard. She hasn’t been running, but she’s being driven towards the signal. Her mind is swimming with fear and adrenaline and all of her thoughts are mixed together. The brief moments of comfort she felt in Lee’s arms have been replaced by the growing sense of dread deep inside her.

In the distance, the sun glints off of something metallic and she sprints ahead. There are pieces of metal strewn across the ground and the weeds have grown up around them. Lee runs after her and he stops to pick up a ragged piece of whitish metal. “Kara, wait.” He’s staring at her with a shocked expression and she looks at the object in his hand.

“Oh, gods.” Those are her call numbers on the hunk of metal in his hand. She stares at him wide-eyed with a sharpening awareness of what she’s going to find. She turns and pushes herself through the high weeds with Lee following close behind. She stops suddenly and sees the charred ship ahead of them. Swallowing hard, she steps forward, recognizing the wrecked-out safety cage on a Viper Mark II. Everything in her mind screams that she should turn away, frakking run away, but the signal on her receiver is whining and she flicks it off, tossing it onto the ground. By some instinct, she knows what this is and she feels the bile rising in her throat.

“Help me roll this, Lee,” she says, her voice sounding high and tight.

He doesn’t hesitate, and with a hard shove, they flip the bird. It rattles, debris scattering around it before it settles into place in front of them. Kara looks at the body and throws a startled glance at Lee who’s looking back at her with wide eyes. He steps out of Kara’s way as she pushes past him to get closer to the cockpit.

“Kara, wait,” he says again, but she ignores him and looks at the body. There’s a tangle of white-blond hair peeking out from below a helmet and she closes her eyes as she takes the final step to the ship. She can’t breathe for the pain in her chest and she opens her eyes. Her hand is shaking as she reaches in and tips the helmet towards her. It’s a ghastly face, with rotted and charred flesh and a gaping smile. Kara turns away and the contents of her stomach empty. She’s retching hard and Lee’s hand is on her back until she jerks up, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

Closing her eyes tightly, she pushes her hand into the burnt flight suit, feeling around for the chain. Just when she thinks her stomach might heave again, her fingers find the thin strand, and she pulls hard, breaking the weakened charred metal and yanks it away. The tags clang against the frame of the cockpit and she’s terrified to look, but does it anyway. One single bloody tag and a sliver ring. They’re unmistakable and she’s about to retch. She stumbles away from the ship, falling into Lee who grabs onto her, his firm grip anchoring her against him.

She’s shaking, or he is, or the ground is. Her mind can’t get around what she’s seeing. _That body is me_. It makes no sense and all the sense in the world. She’s dead. She’s the frakking walking dead standing in a field on a nuked planet. Oh, gods, oh gods, it’s overwhelming. She breaks free from Lee’s arms and moves away from the ship, peering at the tag in her hand, knowing already what it’ll say.

After a moment, she feels Lee next to her again and he reaches out. “Kara?” His voice sounds confused and questioning. She can’t even imagine what he’s thinking and when he touches her arm, she jerks away.

“Get away from me, Lee. Get away!” Her voice is rough and raw, different inside her head than she expects. His mouth drops open and he jolts away from her like he’s burned. She starts to yell, rage, bitterness pouring out of her like a faucet she can’t turn off. “Can’t you see what that is? It’s me. It’s my frakking dead body in a viper on Earth. Earth! I am dead, Lee. How can I be dead?”

“Kara, I don’t know.” His voice is thin and she can see he’s struggling to make some sense of it.

“If that’s me lying there, then what am I? What am I?” She grips the tags tightly in her fist and turns away from him, shaking with unspent emotion. All her life, her mother told her she was a poison, a cancer, and now she was so much worse than that. And every single time she thought she might be happy, even for one frakking second, it all gets blown to shit. Earth, Lee, everything is crashing down around her and she can’t cope. She wants to run and cry and scream, but she can’t. There’s nowhere left to go. She stumbles away and sinks to the ground, the dog tag digging into the flesh of her hand as she grips it.

~ * ~

Lee watches her move away and drop onto the ground. He wants to go to her, but she’s lost inside herself. He can’t even fathom what’s happening here; it’s all in slow motion, like so many of the horrible things he’s experienced in the past three years. He should be used to it by now, but this is too much. Nothing that he’s ever believed in makes sense and now he’s faced with some frakked-up proof that the Kara Thrace he loves now is not the same person he knew before. It’s more than his human mind can comprehend. He’s never believed in the gods, but this pushes him closer than he’s ever been to having faith that something’s out there, orchestrating this whole nightmare.

With wobbly legs, Lee finds his own place to sit, the remnants of the viper between them at a distance. He watches her back, has no idea what she must be feeling and thinking and is utterly helpless to do anything. He has no idea how to deal with this…thing that he can’t even put a name to. He settles his head onto his arms, resting his forehead against the rough of his jacket. None of it makes any sense and he feels like he could sink into the ground and disappear.

When he thinks about how he’s going to deal with this, he imagines his mind has to shift, to move through space like a ship jumping faster than light. Before he knew how the technology worked, he used to think of it as magic. Now he knows it’s hard science and he understands it in a detailed way. But there’s always the sensation of jumping, of stretching through time for just one long moment. It feels like that now, like he has to stretch himself to a new place, to accept what he sees and just move on from it.

He told Zarek a few days ago that they had to work with the facts on the ground. Now he has his own crazy set of facts that he has to work with. Kara died. Her body had ended up on Earth, sucked through space by the swirling storm that had spit her out here, on this planet that they were meant to find with the cylons. He had no explanation for how that might have happened, but it doesn’t matter. It is fact. He could deny it and run away, leaving Kara to deal with it all alone, but that was something he would never do. He’d abandoned her too many times before, over small things, never staying long enough to work anything out. Not this time. The gods, or god, or whatever he was going to believe in, had given him a second chance with her and he wasn’t going to lose it.

Lee stares hard at her seated figure, looking smaller than before, and he makes his decision. He rises off the ground and walks over, sitting on the ground to face her. She doesn’t move or acknowledge his presence, so he just sits, watching her face, seeing the flatness of someone who has given up.

“Kara, what are you doing?” he finally asks.

She finally looks up at him. “I’m dead, Lee. I don’t exist, but I’m sitting here talking to you.”

“I don’t care, Kara.” She blinks at him, clearly surprised by his words.

“I don’t care what we found. It’s frakked up and I can’t explain it, but I don’t care. I don’t know what you are and maybe we’ll never know.” He shifts forward and touches the hands she has coiled tightly around her tags. “What I do know is that I love you and all of this crazy shit can’t matter. Not to us.” He unclenches her hands and pulls out the tags, tossing them into the grass far away from them. He takes her hands tightly in his and stares at her intently, his voice firm and steady. “I’m Lee and you’re Kara and the rest doesn’t mean a damn thing. This. This is all that matters.”

After a long moment, he releases her hands and pulls her into an awkward embrace, sliding his hand to the back of her neck and holding her against his shoulder.

~ * ~

She can’t deal with Lee and his words. It’s too frakked up and after a minute she has to break free. “I can’t do this, Lee. It’s too much.” Kara shoves herself backwards and stands. Lee’s up after her in another second, and they’re walking towards the ship again. “I have to look again. I can’t deal with this.”

It’s not her imagination. It’s still her body and it’s still her. _It does matter_ , she thinks, because she can’t imagine anything else. How Lee has gotten his head around this, she does not know. She needs something more. She can’t just move on like nothing has happened. She can’t exist in two places and she needs to be the only one. With rough movements, she reaches behind the pilot’s seat, pulling at the parachute that’s tucked inside. She ignores the feeling of Lee’s eyes on hers as she struggles to pull the heavy synthetic fabric out of its confines. The parachute starts to slide out more freely and she feels Lee behind her, pulling it. It’s still attached and Kara reaches for her ankle knife and slices the ropes that tether it to the seat. Lee moves away with the bundle and she reaches down in front of the corpse and unfastens the belt.

When she turns around, Lee is standing with the mound of fabric, his face tense and questioning. “What are we doing, Kara?”

She turns back to the body and starts to pull it out of the seat. “I’m burning it, Lee. I can’t have us both around.” The body is heavy and brittle and she steels herself against the knowledge of what she’s trying to do. She’s not surprised when he steps up to help her, and using their combined strength, they manage to get the body out of the harness and roll it into the parachute.

They don’t look at each other and she’s grateful. That would make it real – more real than she can handle right now. When the body’s wrapped, she starts to gather wood. Without speaking, Lee heads off in another direction and they return time and time again, until they have a high mound of fallen trees and twigs. The sun has dipped below the horizon and there is a pale bluish hue settling around them.

Together, they carry her body to the pyre, pushing it on top and stepping back to look. They can barely make out the shape in the dimming light, as they set the logs ablaze. It takes a while, but soon the tinder blossoms into larger and hotter flames as the pyre lights brightly into the darkening sky. As the flames lick the edges of the shroud, Kara sits, rapt in attention as whatever remained of her other life vanishes. The wind is steady and the flames shoot away, lighting the ground around them and washing their faces in heat.

Lee sits next to her, his leg against hers as they watch silently. He’s been quiet, respecting her need for this closure, and she’s utterly grateful. She can’t think of what she would say to him, how she can explain her need to watch this ancient ritual.

As her body burns, she feels the tension loosening inside her chest. She starts to feel whole again, in touch with the body she has now, releasing the old self and embracing the new. Whatever job she had to do, the Kara Thrace that was the Harbinger of Death is now gone. She is done here and it feels good.

With a feeling of satisfaction, she leans her head against Lee’s shoulder and slides her hand into his. He squeezes reassuringly and she knows, after everything, that what they found here doesn’t really matter. He knows who she is, and even if they’re not quite not sure what in the hell has happened, he loves her anyway.

As the dying embers of the fire go out, she stands, brushing soot and ash off of her clothes. The darkness inside her is gone, leaving a tiny spark of something that can grow. With Lee by her side, she’s ready to move on. Whatever second life the gods have given her, she wants to share it with him.

 _That_ is all that matters.


	2. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lee make a new beginning among the ruins of a dead Earth
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains both canon-compliant and _**non-canon**_ character death.

Kara walks with Lee across the washed out landscape towards a waiting raptor. She’s ready to get off this waste of a planet and get back to everything that’s familiar and safe. There are a few stragglers left on the surface and she sees the white beams of flashlights darting around the ruins. One of the Eights tells them that President Roslin and the Admiral have already returned to the Fleet with most of the others. Kara’s mind is a blur, the smell of burning wood and smoke thick in her nostrils as she boards the raptor.

No one talks as Skulls takes them into the atmosphere. Kara, still shaken, gives Lee sidelong glances, looking for some tell-tale sign that he’s going to change his mind about her now that they’re returning to the Fleet. He just holds onto her hand instead, rubbing his thumb over and over her skin. The raptor is empty except for the two of them and she presses herself against him. He releases her hand and puts his arm around her shoulders.

They step onto the deck on Galactica and it’s eerily quiet. No one meets her eyes and she’s happy to drift across the deck without being noticed. She feels suddenly like a ghost, haunting the halls of her old ship. The only thing that tethers her to the present is Lee’s arm around her shoulders.

In the corridor, she stops and faces him. “What now, Lee? What do we do now?” Her face is filled with pain, and she wants answers.

He touches her face, “Come back to Colonial One with me.”

She nods, half-aware, mind filled with images of her body and the fire and what it might all mean.

Lee’s talking, “But I have to talk to Laura Roslin first. I can’t even imagine how she feels. And the Quorum, what am I going to say to them?” He’s talking fast and shaking his head. She doesn’t know how he can even be thinking about the future when her body has just burned.

“Lee… I don’t know. I can’t even…” Her eyes go unfocused again and all she feels is the grit of ash and the smell of smoke so permeated in her body that she’s afraid it will never leave. “I need a shower,” she says abruptly, turning away from him, mindless of the surprise on his face.

He tugs on her arm before she walks away. “Kara wait. You okay?”

With a clearing shake of her head, she meets his eyes, “Yeah. I just need to get this frakking smell off of me.”

He pulls her towards him, and she sinks into his embrace; it’s the bit of strength she needs to keep moving. “Get your shower, meet me in twenty and we’ll go to Colonial One.” He squeezes her tightly before kissing her. “I love you and we’re going to figure this out.”

She nods and steps away, glancing back before turning into the next corridor. His voice echoes in her ears, guiding her when her own mind is blank. _Shower…twenty minutes…Colonial One._ She can do that.

~*~

The ship feels empty, an absence of life and spirit that only comes when there’s devastation of this magnitude. Lee felt it before – on the day that Kara died. The halls of Galactica had been silent, or maybe it had been him as he drifted around the decks, a cloud of grief following him. He sees that now in the people who know about Earth, but he feels oddly unaffected. Something profound has happened to him that he can’t explain. His grief for the planet is strong, but his need to keep moving forward is stronger, spurred on by Kara. She is his future, has always been his everything, and the loss he feels about a dead planet can’t even begin to touch what he went through when she died. Just the thought of that time sends a shiver along his spine and he clears his throat, shifting his thoughts back to the present..

Lee heads toward the CIC and his father, hoping to find Laura before she returns to Colonial One. Fear and pain lodge in his gut as he imagines what the frail woman must be experiencing. He catches sight of them walking towards his father’s quarters. When he catches up, Laura’s face is ashen, the mark of a woman who has lost everything. His father sees him and smiles grimly as Lee approaches.

“Dad. Madame President.” He nods, not quite sure what to say.

Laura gives him a blank stare and his father’s eyes are on her. “Madame President, I’m heading to Colonial One now. What are we going to do about the Quorum? About the people who want to know about Earth. Have you addressed them?” Some part of Lee hates to ask the question, but they have to move on with the business of governing. “We have to tell them something. The ship is already filled with misinformation. They deserve to know.”

Laura gives him a look like she’s choking and turns away, heading into the hatch that’s been opened by the guard. His father stops for a moment. “Carry the ball, Lee.” And then he follows Laura into his quarters, closing the hatch behind them. Lee stands there for a moment, surprised and then turns away.

He walks towards the deck, a feeling pride and love connecting him to his father. They’re so much more alike than he ever wants to admit. He’s protecting Laura, the woman he loves. Lee wants to do the same thing for Kara. The need is so powerful, it’s almost physical, pulling him towards her. Thoughts of the Quorum drift to the back of his mind. Like his father, Lee realizes that the Quorum _will_ have to wait. He needs to find Kara.

~*~

The water is hot, scalding almost as it streams down her back and legs. Kara takes advantage of her twenty minutes to rid herself of the stink of Earth. She needs the sensation of burning to distract her from the memories of her body and her face. _Her face. Gods, it’s so frakking horrifying._ The pain helps, but the strangeness holds tight, forefront in her mind. Everything has changed now and she’s trying to get her mind to hold on to the things that are good. _Lee._ At the end of another ruined civilization, she has found Lee again. Brought together at first by the ends of the worlds and now again by Earth, two places of death and destruction that have given her what she didn’t expect.

After a minute, she turns up the cold, easing the heat and feeling her body calm. She hadn’t even realized she’d been shaking, probably had been since the moment they’d found that ship. How is she ever going to forget? _Shower…twenty minutes...Colonial One._ Lee’s words rouse her from her thoughts, shake her, the power of his words and voice and the strength he had down on that shitshow of a planet. She doesn’t know how to comprehend the gravity of it, that she needs him, really needs him just to know how to put one foot in front of the other. The immensity of it brings the spark of tears to her eyes. It’s terrifying and utterly comforting at the same time and she doesn’t know what to do with it. She loves him so much.

She spins the water controls off and with the clearing steam, she feels a growing sense of relief that she’s off that planet. The towels on Galactica are soft and worn, and she buries her face in it and inhales the familiar slightly metallic scent of the old battleship. When she finally lifts her head, Kara catches her reflection in the mirror and freezes.. Tired eyes, ringed with dark circles stare back at her, as if she aged a year for every hour spent on that godsforsaken dirtball. She takes it in for a few minutes, then pivots sharply, turning her back to the mirror and dressing quickly. It doesn’t matter what she found down there. She’s still here. Still Kara Thrace. She’s got to get on with her life and Lee’s waiting for her.

~*~

Lee’s on his way to the hangar deck, his thoughts filled with concern about Kara, the look on her face when they parted. He feels a sense of dread and irritation that he’d let her go on her own, especially after what they’d been through. He maneuvers around a cluster of enlisted and hears a soft voice behind him as he moves past.

“Lee.” He knows who it is before he turns.

“Hi, Dee.” He smiles softly. “How are you?”

“Okay.” She dips her head, looking at the floor and he sees emotions wash over her face, sadness, fear, and pain. When she looks back, her eyes are glistening.

“Hey,” he says, concerned, and steps towards her. He wants to reach out, but doesn’t know how she’d take it. Their lives were once intertwined, and even though it had been built on a foundation of his own pain about Kara, he never stopped caring about her.

“That planet…” She can’t speak and his throat tightens. A terrible look of pain flashes across her face and Lee doesn’t know what to do. Dee has always been the strong one, the stalwart woman who’d helped him through one of the worst times in his life. Now, he feels helpless, uncertain of what they are and what comfort he can possibly offer her.

“Dee…” He takes a step towards her anyway, instincts taking over and raises his hand to touch her shoulder. She steps back with a shake of her head.

“I’ve got to go,” she says, her face flattening into nothingness and letting him know that comfort is not what she wants from him. He swallows and drops his arm, his mouth turned down as he watches her walk away. Guilt and sadness from everything that’s long past still haunts him. He’d never meant to hurt her. Even now, the knowledge that he and Kara are together pulls shame across his shoulders and he feels the weight of his mistakes once more.

~*~

Kara flies Lee in a raptor to Colonial One, the two of them arriving to a bustle of commotion in the main cabin of the ship. One of Laura’s assistants descends upon Lee with a hundred questions. Kara watches as he deftly handles the aide, sidestepping concerns about the President and asking him to issue a statement that a press conference will be held tomorrow.

When the man is satisfied, Lee pulls Kara after him and leads them through the ship to his quarters in the aft portion of the vessel. She looks around, taking in the neatly made bed and the files stacked precisely on the desk. He’s a soldier, she thinks absently, always will be.

She sighs and drops onto the bed, kicking off her boots and shoving them off to the side. She peels off her flightsuit, unthinking until she starts to pull it over her hips. She’s stripped in front of him a hundred times, but now it’s them alone, ready to start something that still scares the hell out of her. She watches him through her lashes as she finally pulls the suit off, tossing it on a chair. He’s moving silently around the room, kicking off his shoes, and she stretches out on the bed, tucking an arm beneath the pillow and facing him.

“Nice place, Lee.” It sounds stupid to say, but her chest feels tight with anxiety, the weight of everything between them hanging in the air. For so long they’ve been running on adrenaline, dealing with cylons and Earth and … her body, and she doesn’t know how to be just them now.

He turns towards her and smiles, looking around the place. “Yeah, it’s okay. Not Galactica or anything, but I’m used to it.” He shrugs off his jacket, revealing the black t-shirt underneath and the arms that have lost none of their definition since he’s been a civvie. She smiles a little and her body responds to him, old feelings of arousal licking at her insides, settling her again into familiar territory.

She rises up off the bed and pads towards him, sliding her arms around his waist. He turns, holding her loosely and they are face to face, their noses nearly touching. They’re breathing together now, not kissing, simply inhaling. Lee still smells like smoke and soot, and she stops, not letting her mind go to thoughts of what that means. “You need a shower.”

He grins. “You wanna help?” She answers him with a chuckle and a kiss and he takes her by the hand.

~*~

Unceremoniously, Lee strips off his clothes and turns on the stream of water. He steps in first, soaping himself and washing off the remnants of their day on the planet. Closing his eyes, Lee lets the water pour over his face. A moment later, two arms slide around his waist and he smiles. Her breasts press against his back and he feels the sharp pull of arousal. Kara’s fingers trail down his stomach and along his hips to brush along his thighs. His breathing hitches as she skims her fingers back up, just grazing him and sending shocks of arousal through his body.

“You’re a tease,” he says and turns quickly in the small space, slanting his lips over hers.

Kara chuckles as he pulls her hard against him, reveling in her body, warm and wet against his. She feels incredible in his arms, and tastes like everything he’s missed and thought about since she died. It’s different now than it had been on New Caprica, when everything was sudden and they were drunk and he’d expected so much more than he should have. Even through their affair, he was always unsure, their spouses just around the corner and her refusal to divorce. All that fear went away when she died, lost with her body in the storm, leaving him with the belief that he should have done anything to make her his.

The thoughts spur deeply held longing and he crushes her body to his with force, the water running hot between them as he punishes her mouth with need. She groans, holding onto him with her own force and he trembles, overwhelmed by the sensation of her hands gripping his shoulders. She’s been alive all this time, walking beside him, crying in his arms, but it’s blindingly vibrant now, her breath coming in rising pants as his fingers move inside her. He’s hard against her hip and she reaches for him, sliding a soapy hand along his length. He can’t think anymore, can’t even move, just closes his eyes and feels for a long, long moment.

With his mouth locked onto hers, he cups her ass, lifting her up off the ground and she wraps her legs around him. He presses her up against the stall, and hesitates for a moment because he needs to look at her. Their eyes lock, water trailing down the sides of her face, her hair plastered to the side of her head and she’s more gorgeous than he’s ever known. It’s more than it was that night, so long ago, when she was tentative and he’d ignored it. Her face now is wide open and sure as she hovers there, too, waiting for him to fill her.

They move together, coordinated, and he pushes inside her, holding his eyes open long enough to see the ecstasy on her face as she moans and dips her head against his shoulder. He thrusts hard into her and she’s gripping his flesh desperately, gasping sounds coming from deep in her throat. Every thrust coils his desire tighter, the slippery feel of her skin, the keening breaths against his neck. It’s not long before he’s shuddering, crying out as he explodes with fiery intensity inside her.

Lee is breathing heavily, his legs nearly about to collapse as Kara slides her legs down his hips to stand. He turns them around and leans back against the stall, letting the water cascade down Kara’s back. Her eyes are unfocused as she leans against him, hands resting lightly on his chest. As their breathing slows, Lee caresses Kara’s back gently and her face finds the crook of his neck. He holds her against him for a long time, reveling in the comfort of their bodies and the water and the sated feeling between them.

~*~

Sometime in the middle of the night, Lee’s private line rings. In Kara’s sleepy haze nestled tightly against Lee, it barely registers.

The comm rings two more times and Lee shifts, groaning. “Frak.” He stands up and she rolls into his warm spot, pulling the blanket up over her naked body and drifts back to sleep.

She feels a touch on her shoulder and hears Lee calling her; she snuggles down into the warmth of the bed.

“Kara.” It’s more insistent now.

“Yeah?” she mumbles and opens an eye to look at him. He’s dressed, his face white and stricken. Her eyes snap open. “Lee, what happened?”

“Dee.”

“What about Dee?” She sits up now, bunching the blanket into her fists as she covers herself.

“She… she shot herself.” The words sound foreign, unbelievable. She blinks hard.

“My gods.” Kara shakes her head, confusion lining her face. “I don’t understand.”

“No. Neither do I.” She stares at him for a long moment, unable to comprehend what he’s telling her. After everything, Dee is the last person she’d ever think would kill herself. It doesn’t make any sense. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, Kara.” He shakes his head and she can see he’s struggling to keep the tears from pooling in his eyes. Abruptly, he stands up and moves away from her, his shoulders stiff and wide under his jacket as he faces the bulkhead.

She watches his back, shaking gently, and she reaches for her tanks and underwear, pulling them on roughly. Tears sting her own eyes to see Lee, the one who comforted her, held everything together so she could cope with the frakkery on Earth, standing alone. Hesitantly, she approaches him, her heart pounding and puts her hands on his shoulders. She drops her forehead against his back and hears him take a shuddering breath. He turns around with a groan and clutches her body, his face is wet against her neck as she holds him.

With Lee holding on to her, she curses the gods, asking one more time why they have to take people away from the ones she loves. But for once, for one godsdamned time, she gets to be the one to comfort. The gods can’t take that away from her.

~*~

The next few days are a fog as Lee and his father struggle not only with Dee’s suicide, but the depth of grief throughout the Fleet. The heart of Galactica seems to beat more slowly, thudding along sluggishly as if she’s also done with the search for a new world. As Lee walks through the corridors, there’s garbage strewn about, a sure sign that his father’s been holed up in his quarters, barely seen for three full days. He’d heard of a commotion, that he and Tigh almost came to blows again, and he doesn’t know what to do.

The Quorum remains unsatisfied with Lee’s motivational words, which, truth be told, sound hollow even to his own ears. Now that the dream of Earth has been proven an illusion, he doesn’t know what anyone is going to do or how they’re going to move on. Where they’re going to move on to. He just knows they have to keep moving.

Days and weeks are a blur as everyone adjusts to that idea. Earth is dead and gone and they have to find a new place to live. Humans are talking to cylons about their superior FTL technology, but the Fleet is in an uproar. Laura Roslin is nowhere to be found and Lee is fielding Zarek’s myriad and increasingly angry concerns without any backup.

His nights are a respite from the harsh questions and pain of everyone around him. He and Kara stay in his quarters on Colonial One every chance she gets. Galactica has been in chaos and she does what she needs to do, coordinating and flying CAPS, but at the end of her shift, she comes to him, smelling of sweat and tylium and she slides into his arms and it feels like home.

They talk about everything, Zak and his father and what happened on New Caprica and how it felt to fly into the storm. He starts to learn how she works, how she turns away and tries to make a joke when things get too tense and he waits her out, giving her space until she wants to talk. He tries to cram everything into the nights they have together because he doesn’t know what the future holds. She’s glorious and intense and still the most maddening person he has ever met. In this time of utter despair among humans, he is shocked that he can feel such a depth of love and happiness amidst it all. It gives him hope for the rest of it.

He’s shocked one night when she comes back late, clutching a paper in her hand, her face inscrutable. There’s tension in the room as she holds it out to him. He grasps her fingers for a second before he unfolds it, skimming the words in disbelief. His eyes widen and then snap to hers.

“Kara?” His voice breaks a little. He doesn’t know what to say and he simply stares at her, almost not comprehending. He’d made peace with her marriage to Sam, willing to accept what she was giving him, believing in her and her commitment to him. Her divorcing Sam was something he didn’t feel entitled to demand.

She shrugs, trying to make light of it, but there’s a wariness in her eyes and a certain set to her mouth that he recognizes. But he remembers her words about an oath before the Gods and knows this means more than he can understand, and he doesn’t press. Lee neatly folds the paper and sets it aside, then pulls her into his arms, whispering _thank you_ as he brushes her hair with his lips. He feels the last remaining tie to the past lifting, breaking a band of tightness in his chest that he didn’t even know existed.

~*~

A few weeks later, Hot Dog corners Kara in the racks, she can’t help but wonder why the frak people have to bother her when she’s eating. He’s the second one in as many days to give her shit and she’s about done with it. What the frak is going on with these people? Not finding Earth has made everyone assholes and she’s had enough.

“Attention. Attention. Fire in Compartment C…. Evacuate the area.”

She drops her book and heads into the hall where crew are rushing past. “Narcho,” she calls out to the pilot who’s on his way down the corridor.

He spins on her. “You heard the order. Evacuate the area. I’m in charge.”

Narcho turns away and she follow. “Since when did they put pilots in charge of damage control?”

He ignores her and she grabs his arm, stopping him.

He shrugs her hand off violently, shooting her a look full of bile and anger. “Get your hands off me. Gods, no one even knows what you are anymore.”

Something in her gut, the instincts she’s relied upon her whole life, tells her something is wrong. Too much rebellion from junior officers, too much anger that’s not being held. She looks around and heads back down the corridor. She sees a couple of Marines and civilians hauling ass away from her and she follows at a distance. They cut into a weapons locker and she peeks her head around the hatch, just in time to hear Connor barking orders and a crew of men arming themselves. She double-times it back to her rack, grabbing her gun belt and all her ammo. When she tries to connect to the CIC, Gaeta hangs up on her. _Frakker. Godsdamned mutinous frakker._ She should have known.

She slaps the gunbelt around her hips and heads towards the hangar decks. They’ll want raptors and there’s a major ammo locker right off the main entrance. She steps past a pile of munitions just in time to see the same group of Marines and that weasel Connor crowding Lee. Sergeant Williams is holding him and she hears the fear in Lee’s voice as he tells Connor he’s making a mistake. Kara’s heart is pounding hard. She sees the other Marine draw his weapon and point it at Lee’s chest. Without thinking, her sidearm is in her hand and she’s squeezing off a round. At the exact same moment, the Marine fires his own weapon and Lee goes down. She rushes at the scene, guns blazing.

Her mind barely registers that Lee’s on the ground. All she can do is fire. The guard who held Lee is already down, and as Skulls reaches for his weapon, Kara shoots him in the chest. Connor’s next, flying back with the force of two bullets, landing against a pile of crates.

Racetrack rushes to Skulls side and throws a look at Kara. “You frakking killed him!” Her face is a mask of pain and Kara doesn’t care. She pulls the trigger and watches the bullet hole pierce her right between the eyes. They’re all on the ground. They’re all dead and she’s terrified to look at Lee. The Marine was right there. His gun was pointed right at Lee’s chest.

She rushes over to him and blood pours out of his chest, the blue of his shirt and jacket awash in the warm sticky fluid. His eyes flicker open and his mouth gapes. She pushes her hand hard over his heart, but the blood is rushing through her fingers.

“No–no–no–no…” is all she can chant and Lee tries to hold his eyes open, his arms reaching out for her, clutching at her. He’s going to die and she knows it. There’s nothing but the deafening roar of her heart pounding in her ears and the sounds of him gasping for air. The entire world is crushing down on her. Pain is thick in her throat and tears are streaming down her face.

She can’t help him. She can’t help him. _Oh, gods._

“Kara. My fath…my father. Ka—“ He gulps in air. His face is pale and his voice is weak. “I love you, Kara. Always…” She barely hears the words as she clutches him tightly to her chest and blood is pouring through her fingers, slick and wet and she can’t breathe any more. Her chest is a thick wall of unmoving flesh.

“NO!” she yells. “No, no. You can’t go, Lee. Oh, gods. No-o-o! Please… I love you, Lee. Please hold on. Please. Please.” Her voice is rough raw, ripping at the flesh of her throat as she screams.

He’s not moving now and it’s too late, but she can’t stop holding on to him, sobbing uncontrollably, rocking his body and repeating his name to call him back. Gunfire is coming closer and all she can do is pray that someone will come now and put a bullet through her head. She can’t do this. She can’t. Not anymore.

The shaking in her limbs makes it almost impossible to move, but she does. She lays Lee down onto the deck, eyes locked on his face and neck and chest, all smeared with blood. The shock must be moving in now, she thinks absently, because suddenly she can’t really feel anything. Kara’s moving in slow motion, sitting back up on her knees, wiping her hands, _is this his blood?_ onto her pants. The gunfire is moving closer and what replaces her need to die is cold and black: it’s revenge of the deepest kind. Kara stands, finally, staring over the five bodies and blood that now soaks the decking, a single name rising in her mind.

 _Felix Gaeta._

~*~

Kara runs through the corridors, white-blonde hair streaming out behind her, laden down with as many weapons as she can carry. There’s trail of bodies in her wake, and everyone that’s pointed a weapon at her along the way is dead. She is immune to gunfire and the haze of bullets that fly towards her. Later they will say that she was an avenging angel, bent on stopping the men who were taking over the Fleet. The few left who know her will say she acted on instinct, not caring about death because everything she’d lived for was now gone.

Kara moves through the halls towards the CIC, weapons drawn and ready. Word must have traveled from the decks because Felix is ready, a contingent of Marines blocking the entry. She stops short, pulls a stun grenade out of her holster, tosses it into the CIC and steps around a bulkhead. She hears shouting and commotion and in seconds, there is a deafening blast. She steps into the CIC with powerful and determined strides, her face deadly. The ground and chairs are littered with bodies and the few remaining Marines who draw on her die quickly. She’s fast, blindingly fast by the reports, and no one is left to defy her as she pulls at Felix Gaeta’s body, dragging it roughly towards the exit. His crutches go clanging against the deck and she kicks one away.

“This mutiny is over,” she mutters, her grip tightening on Felix’s arm as he is slumped against her legs. She addresses the contingent of loyal Marines who have followed her into the CIC, their faces grim and dutiful. “Find out where they’re holding the Admiral.”

The comm buzzes and Kara nods to a Marine who answers. After a second, he speaks, “It’s Tom Zarek. Wants to speak to Gaeta.”

Kara’s jaw locks and the pieces of the puzzle snap into place. _The other half of the equation._ Her body is still on fire and she has to keep moving or the realization of all that’s happened will come rushing back.

“Find the Admiral and take him to the hangar deck. Someone get over to Colonial One and get me Tom Zarek. If he resists, disable him, but I want him alive.”

Fifteen minutes later, the Admiral and Tigh are brought to the hangar deck. The Old Man looks around and then right at Kara. “Where’s Lee?”

She doesn’t answer, just gestures roughly over her shoulder, her eyes focused on Felix Gaeta who is lying unconscious in the launch tube. She hears the footsteps behind her and feels the sharp stab of pain as the Admiral grits out a non-human sound of grief. She almost loses it there, bile rising thick and bitter in her throat. She swallows it down, forcing it away because she can’t break. Not yet. She straightens her back, her breath forced long and slow, and feels everyone’s eyes on her. The sound of the Admiral sobbing is dull and distant as the rumbling of a landing raptor echoes in the bay.

Without feeling, she watches as the hatch of the raptor opens and Tom Zarek is led out by two Marines, his hands bound behind him. Kara looks away and hears the scrabbling of feet and she imagines what she doesn’t need to see. With the sound of an anguished roar, she knows the Admiral is on him.

Soon, the airlock shudders and clangs closed. Kara lets out a deep sobbing breath and collapses.


	3. Reward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara’s sacrifice leads the Fleet to Earth
> 
> Warning: Mentions of suicide.

During the weeks after Lee’s death, there is silence.

Kara doesn’t speak and she doesn’t work and she refuses to meet with the Admiral. Kara grieves in her own way, through the mouth of a bottle, holed up in Lee’s quarters on Colonial One. She grows thin and weak as the grief consumes her, emerging only to get more liquor and to use the head.

Karl gets information about her from a friend on Colonial One and when he tries to see her, she just stares at the floor between his feet and doesn’t move. He’s never seen her like this and he doesn’t know if she’ll ever come back. He doesn’t really say much, talks a little about the Admiral and how everyone misses her. He knows she doesn’t care, but he says he loves her and if she needs anything he’s only a phone call away.

~*~

Kara’s been drinking for three weeks, alternating between searing hangovers, fits of sobbing rage, and the blankness of intoxication. Her mind is tired and her body feels wrecked. She’s been hearing music, the same few notes pounding a rhythm in her brain for a week now. She thinks she’s hallucinating, and she drinks more until the sound stops and she’s able to sleep.

Soon, though, it’s happening all the time and she cannot rest. The notes are driving her crazier than she already is and she eases up on the alcohol. She tries to eat some of the food that’s been left outside her door—his door—but it comes right back up. Her stomach is rotten, but after a few times trying, she manages some crackers and water. The notes are still playing, beating along with her heart, and it’s then, when she’s awake, that she sees him.

Her father’s hair is longer than she remembers as he sits at a piano in Lee’s tiny quarters, but his face is the same, soft and angled and kind when he looks at her. She’s sure she’s going crazy, but she decides she no longer cares. His presence is warm and welcoming and she’s okay with never emerging from the haze.

The second time she sees him, he stops playing the notes and he speaks to her, “What are you doing, Kara?”

“I’m drinking myself to death.” She feels crazy talking to him, because part of her knows he’s not really there. She speaks anyway. “What does it look like?”

“You have a job to do. You’ve forgotten.” His fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment and then he begins to play again.

“Will you stop playing that frakking song? Don’t you know anything else?” As a child, she would have never spoken to her father this way, but he’s a hallucination and she’s nuts.

“You need this song, Kara. It’s the way to Earth.”

She spits out a mouthful of ambrosia. “Been there, done that, got the PTSD. Don’t think so.” She shakes her head. Replacing the wasted booze with a swallow more.

“He wants you to keep going. To find Earth.” Her father’s voice fits between the notes, calm and confident.

Her eyes widen. “What the frak are you talking about? Who does?” She leans forward, peering at him, thinking maybe she’ll see through him like a ghost.

“Lee.” She hasn’t heard his name for a month and her body trembles. “He’d want you to keep searching.” He glances over at her, his face kind. “Am I right?”

“Frak you,” she chokes out. “We found Earth with the frakking cylons and look what it got him.

“Are you sure?”

She says nothing, but her face is wet again as the notes continue to play, beating out their steady song until her tears are spent and she rests.

~*~

Bill Adama has grieved the loss of two sons and he is not sure why he is still alive. Surely this loss should mean little when he’s meant to save the human race, but it does. It’s broken him. The son he grew to know and trust and see as his equal is gone, joining the younger, easier child in death. Bill functions now as a ghost of himself, doing what he needs to do, but mainly relying on Saul Tigh to run the battlestar. They’ve made an alliance with the cylons and he’s got to live with it. He can’t guide them anymore and stays in command only to keep the Fleet from falling apart. They will never follow a cylon and he says the words that everyone needs to hear about alliances and faith and how they will all find a place to live. The slow death of his ship has brought him to a place of despair about his life and his purpose and how he’s let everyone down. It is more than one man can bear and he is no longer able to carry the burden.

His only solace is Laura, remaining steady and inexplicably growing stronger as he needs her to. She’s the fighter now, holding fast with the cylon rebels, finding strength where he has none. She’s overcome the devastation of the ruined Earth and she sits with him, reading the book of Pythia, a new copy to replace the one she burned all those weeks ago before Lee’s death.

“You rest, Bill. Let me do the heavy lifting,” she says as she strokes his hair. He smiles faintly at her because he knows she can. In his darkest moments, she is the woman he had always wanted, the one who knows him better than anyone and lives with his pain. She demands nothing of him, only that he rest. He loves her more than he can imagine. Caution tells him to stop and withdraw – she is sick with cancer and one more loss will kill him. He throws caution to the wind; Laura has been dying since he met her and she’s still here, bright and strong and he believes in her more than he believes in himself.

It’s Laura’s voice and the entreaties of Helo and Athena that finally rouse him from his stupor. For so long, he’s just been tired, ready to quit and let the cylons take the lead. Now, though, the ship is failing and has only a few more jumps in her. The cylon Cavil, the one who kept Laura prisoner on New Caprica, has the child Hera and for her and for the people left in the Fleet, he pulls himself together for one final battle.

~*~

Kara throws away the last bottle and shoves the bag out into the small corridor and shuts the door. She knows that one of Lee’s aides will come and take it away, as they have done for almost two months. Looking around the small cabin, the one she so briefly shared with Lee, she takes a long wavering breath and slides her arms into her uniform jacket. With each button, she straightens, feeling the resumption of her old strength, the need to take action, to stop the suffering and to join the fight. In the back of her mind, she knows its bravado, but she does it anyway.

Her father’s presence, real or imagined, has bolstered her, a reunion, however brief, that’s given her solace. She keeps the coordinates to Earth in her pocket, never quite sure that they are real, but saving them for a time when they will be needed.

Kara zips her small bag and gives one final look around the room, her eyes filling with tears once more. She tries not to think of it as goodbye, but in a way it is: to Lee, to her father, to the past she’s been trying to hold onto. It’s time to move on.

The raptor feels alive under her fingers and she smiles for the first time since Lee’s death. Small and tentative, but the rush of power, even in the clunky workhorse of the Fleet, re-engages her spirit a little more.

Settling down on the deck, she emerges from the cockpit and the raptor door lifts. As she steps out, the familiar smell of tylium and grease fills her nose, familiar and welcoming. Her attention is immediately drawn across the decks as she hears the Admiral’s voice booming over a throng of people in the cavernous room. He is announcing the mission that Helo told her about earlier in the day, his excited voice crackling over the connection in Lee’s quarters. The thought of joining the battle makes her pulse quicken and she rushes towards the fray.

“Have no illusions. This is likely to be a one-way trip. Do not volunteer out of sentiment or emotion.” His words draw her close and she weaves her way through the crowd towards his voice.

Kara’s heart is beating loudly in her chest when she sees him atop a ladder, his back proud and face serious. His voice and his words rumble inside her, deep and meaningful as she surges forward in the crowd.

“There is a line running down this deck.” The crowd begins to part and Kara looks towards the middle. “Volunteers move to the starboard side. Everyone else to the port.”

The Admiral climbs down the ladder and comes forward, assessing the people as they begin to move, to choose their path. When she breaks through the front of the crowd, his eyes widen and they both smile.

Kara steps forward and stands by his side, taking her rightful place. He squeezes her hand once and lets it drop.

She’s come home one last time.

~*~

Finally, the planet they find, so-named Earth, is verdant and pure and brimming with life. Its swelling green valleys and wide oceans will provide sustenance and stability for years to come. Kara witnessed the death of the cylon Cavil, along with the secrets of resurrection technology, and finally the cylons, once immortal, will die with the humans on this fresh new world. Hera, the young girl who unites them all, will have room to grow and play under the watchful eye of her parents; the three of them form a happy family unit on the outskirts of a makeshift tent city.

Settlement plans have formed quickly with Romo Lampkin leading the humans and the cylons in unification. A few small settlements have sprung up already along the river, much as they did on New Caprica, this time with hope replacing oppression. A sense of purpose and peace surrounds the people as they bring their belongings from the aging ships to settle on the unspoiled land. Soon many of the ships will be grounded, acting as shelter and refuge should the winter months prove harsh. They have fuel supplies for years to come and without the cylons on their heels, the people can go back out among the stars for more. Their future is wide open.

Feeling again separate, just as she did when she returned from the swirling storm, Kara remains distant from the planning. Instead, she stays close to Bill and to Laura, each of them connected in a common pain.

Now, in Laura’s final hours, Bill prepares to take Laura on a final journey. Kara approaches the raptor and he steps out, his face deeply set with anguish. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

“I know,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. Laura waits in the raptor, weak and dying, and Kara’s chest squeezes once again with grief. _So much loss._

Bill touches her face tenderly, as Lee used to do, and the tears fall. His smile is sad and loving.

“What do you hear, Starbuck?” He asks one final time. She knows he is leaving and does not plan to return.

“Nothin’ but the rain, sir,” she answers, tears spilling freely down her cheeks.

“Then grab your gun and bring the cat in.” The familiar refrain settles warmly in her heart and Bill pulls her into a tight hug and kisses her briefly on the mouth.

Her eyes follow him as he steps up into the raptor and the door closes. Through the window, Laura watches, her eyes small and tired behind her now-large glasses. Kara raises a hand and Laura answers, touching her fingers lightly on the glass. Kara smiles and dips her head, acknowledging all that they have sacrificed for this place. The other woman's hand drops and the engines rumble to life.

Stepping back, she watches the raptor lift and soar into the sky, flying away from the sun until the speck of black finally disappears along the horizon.

Finally, she is alone, standing in a flat green field of grass, her last connections to her former life gone. Her mission is complete and she is tired. Tired of the fight and the pain and the ever present grief that dogs her every waking thought. It’s more than a person should have to bear, and yet she has, under the watchful eyes of the gods, pulling every ounce of life and passion out of her until she’s wrung dry.

She walks a little ways until she comes to the crest of a hill overlooking a wide sweeping valley. Nestled in the ridge of two swathes of trees, she envisions a cabin and thinks of what she’s lost, the future she might have had after this horrible journey. She knows Lee would have loved it here and her eyes fill with tears again. Bitterly, she thanks the gods that this is the last time she has to feel this pain. She sinks to the ground and cries until her sobs are weak and empty and she is spent.

With a shuddering breath, she draws her service weapon, loads the chamber and lays the gun in her lap. Her mind plays the film of her life, her childhood and the Academy and her time with Zak. The failures and the frak ups and how, in the end, Lee loved her anyway. His loss broke the last of her resolve, leaving her without hope, without her own purpose. Instead felt like a puppet, pulled by strings she could not see, designed to lead others to their end, sacrificing her own life for theirs. But at least now, she is done.

The gun is warm in her hands, a fitting finale, she thinks, for a soldier. Grimly, she prays that this is the end, that she won’t emerge again, forced to do the gods bidding while others find joy and prosperity. She needs it to be over. With a grim hope, she raises the weapon to her temple and finds the trigger.

“Hi, Kara,” a voice sounds from behind her. She’s startled and turns towards the sound.

Her mouth drops open and her hand goes slack around the weapon.

“Lee?”

She closes her eyes, her arm lowering, and shakes her head. It’s another hallucination. First her father, now Lee. But when she opens her eyes again, he is still there, smiling back at her, his hands shoved deep in the pocket of his pants. She can’t move, she’s frozen in place by the shock of seeing him.

“It’s okay. It’s really me.” He’s got half a smile on his face and she blinks.

“No, it can’t be. I saw you die. I was...” She chokes on her words, grief so thick that she can barely breathe. She closes her eyes again, terrified. She can’t see him and lose him again. _Oh, gods._ She’s sobbing now. “No, please don’t do this to me.” She’s plaintive like a child. Everything she’d hoped for is right there, but she can’t.

Her sobs stop short as she feels the gun being eased out of her hands. “Kara, it’s going be okay.”

Her eyes blink open and he’s inches away from her, his blue eyes bright and real and she gasps, twisting her fingers around his collar to pull him into a fervent kiss. She rises up on her knees to pull him closer, to convince herself with every taste and touch and sensation that he is real.

She releases his mouth and embraces him tightly. “Oh, gods, Lee. I missed you so much.” She’s trembling and holding on as if he might suddenly disappear.

“I missed you, too.” She hears his breath hitch and he squeezes her tighter. “I missed you, too.”

He holds her for a long time until they break apart and lie side by side in the grass, their fingers tightly intertwined. He talks about this place and how he waited for her and how their struggle is now over.

Kara doesn’t know where they are, heaven or Earth or somewhere in between. What she does know, though, is that they are together again and that is all that matters.

 

 **EPILOGUE**

A few weeks later, Karl finds himself on the same hill, overlooking the wide river valley where the settlements are starting to grow. He glances at Hera over his shoulder, running and playing in the field, the bright pitch of her laughter ringing in his ears.

He breathes deeply, letting his mind wander to the past and the future, thoughts of Kara and Lee and the Old Man filtering through his mind. With a sharp tug of pain, he misses them.

He knows in his gut that Kara is gone, inexplicably, and that her “frakked up destiny” as she’d called it, was now complete. He misses her the most, the braying laughter and the indomitable spirit, and he hopes that wherever she is she’s at peace. She deserved it.

As Helo grows old, he tells the story of Kara Thrace to the children of Earth. He shares with them her journey and talks of the great love between her and the Admiral’s son and how his death became the catalyst that drove her to find Earth. How she sacrificed herself for their good fortune.

For generations to come, the tale is woven through the culture of this new race, and at every refrain, the words are repeated, eyes to the heavens, and towards Starbuck and Apollo, their meaning deep and profound.

 _You will not be forgotten._


End file.
